The day started with much promise. There was no rain in the forecast for the next 24 hours. So we knew today would be a great day to work. I woke up early like I always do. The first thing I wanted to get accomplished was the laundry. We live in small quarters here and well dirty laundry gets a little "smelly" after a while, so I headed up to the marina building with laundry in tow and a bag of garbage that needed taken to the dumpster. Garbage is another thing that needs to be taken care of daily.
On my way out of the boat and to the dumpster I took a couple of shots that caught my eye.
The laundry facilities here at the marina are nice. They have 2 washers, 3 dryers and 2 dishwashers. The dishwashers I thought were weird at first but then realized they were more for the staff to clean all the dishes from the hire boats. It's a clean and spacious area. Along the wall where the dryers are located is a shelf full of books. As any boater knows these are what we call "take one leave one". They are free to any boater, plus you can leave one you may have that you are done reading.
After finishing the laundry I arrived back to the boat. By that time Mike was up and working. He completed the install of the stove. I realized I have not a photo of that yet, but will take one when it is actually in use. We ate a small breakfast and of course coffee since that is what keeps these shipmates moving. We then moved on to our next tasks at hand. Mike continued chasing down leaks and filling them with epoxy. This for now is a never ending job.
I took on the task of cleaning out the stern of the boat. There was years of gunk accumulated in this area that literally took a screw driver and a powerful hose to dislodge. I needed to clean out the drainage holes of debris so that things would drain properly.
It really had turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day!
Our next task was to clear out the forepeak. I unfortunately don't have a photo of this from before, but the set up was a small bunk which was advertised as a double when in reality it was just over the size of a single bed. There was a thin wood panelling installed on the walls and ceiling that had rotted over the years from water damage. Mike being the "stud" (he's going to hate me for that one) that he is climbed in there and started ripping things down. You see this man (and me too) loves the demolition part. You just never know what you are going to find. Well what we found under the panelling was the original carpet on the walls which was gross and moldy. We also found on the ceiling the original white furry stuff. Oddly enough the ceiling fur was in fairly good shape. Just needed swept. We couldn't say much though for the carpet found behind the panelling on the walls. IT WAS DISGUSTING! Mike had torn some of this out before, but today the remainder was removed. The walls were then, scrubbed with bleached and swept.
The carpet was installed almost down into the bilge. Mike was successful in tearing out all the carpet . Yes he wore a face covering and we ventilated it the best we could. I then hauled all the debris out in bags to the dumpster. The space in the forepeak is small and there was no room to work with debris laying around. On my way back to the boat Mike popped his head out of the hatch. It reminded both of us of the children's game "Wack a Mole".
I hauled every thing out to the back deck. Some of this was garbage, some of the wood we would be taking home to re-use in other projects and the large pieces shown below would be temporarily kept to use as templates.
After cleaning out this area Mike used it to cut down a larger piece of wood that was covering the bunk. It always amazes me how he can construct things in the smallest of spaces.
And yes it still was beautiful outside.
While Mike was tearing things apart I too was doing some investigating. Below is one of the corners of the forepeak where leaking over the years had taken its toll. I worked on digging out some of the rotted wood and then removed the lower board as this needed to be taken out so we could remove the cabinet located below. Hmm I think we are going to need some Bondo repair here.
Mike takes a break to mix up some more epoxy to pour into leaky parts of the boat.
The cabinet below will be removed so that we can install another bunk for the First Mate (me) to sleep in, but that will be done tomorrow.
The wood for the templates we hauled up to the fly bridge to keep dry, well as dry as it can be up there. The canvas on the fly bridge is marginal at best, but that's for a much later post.
Below is an after shot of it all cleaned up. The orange and yellow walls are the fiberglass of the boat with the afternoon sun shining through. By this time it was after 6:00 p.m. and we were exhausted. Time now for a shower and a bite to eat then bed. Yes the Captain was in bed asleep by 9:00 p.m. (me too)
LOVE THIS MAN SOOOOOO MUCH!
It's now Sunday morning. Time for a new day and projects.
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